Good credit = visa to Japan or Luxembourg – China’s latest business and technology news
A summary of the top news in Chinese business and technology for June 7, 2017. Part of the daily The China Project news roundup "China and the high price of American garlic."
Alibaba’s Ant Financial, the world’s largest third-party payments platform, which runs Alipay and Yu’e Bao, will apply its Sesame Credit scores to fast-track visa applications for individuals deemed “financially reliable,” Caixin reports (paywall). Any of the 100 million users ranked on Sesame Credit with a score of at least 750 for Japan, or 700 for Luxembourg — the scale ranges from 350 to 900 — will be “exempt from the normally required process of submitting bank records when applying through the e-commerce giant’s travel-booking arm for visas.”
The move is the latest of a series of experiments by the payments platform: Ant Financial originally applied a similar exemption for visas to Singapore in 2015, and recently used Sesame Credit’s data to “waive shared bike deposits.” The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), though it handpicked Sesame Credit as one of a few companies to “tentatively open the country’s private-sector personal credit-reporting system,” has been unimpressed by results so far, Caixin reports. “Banks and private lenders are dubious about the reliability of the assessments made by firms like Sesame,” Caixin says, and “[Wan Cunzhi of the PBOC’s Credit Information System Bureau] told Caixin that often the scores are a poor reference for an individual’s actual financial trustworthiness.”
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A key question is at the heart of China’s new cybersecurity law: Where should data live? / Quartz
There is “more than enough reason to doubt that…China’s true motivations lie in protecting its citizens’ privacy.” - Online banks tied to Tencent, Alibaba bulk up 1 yuan at a time on microloans / Caixin
- China’s forex reserves hit a seven-month high / SCMP
